If I Told You Once: A Novel (28 page)

Mara

It was summer. I had a game of solitaire spread out across the stoop.

I did not like being outside, with children running past and screaming. But the air in the apartment was unbearable.

Down the block children jumped in and out of the water gushing from an open hydrant. They stood in the gutter in their soaked shorts and T-shirts, barefoot in the trash and bottles. Soon someone would step on broken glass.

Sweat dripped off my forehead and dotted the steps.

One of the boys straddled the hydrant so that the water spewed from between his legs. The others hooted and shrieked with laughter.

The streets baked. Everything gave up its smell to the air. I could smell garbage, gasoline, exhaust. But I also thought I could smell bricks, asphalt, the bright metallic scent of cars that have sat in the sun until they are too hot to touch.

My brother shot from the door, trampling through my game and scattering the cards. He began racing up the street.

I chased after him, my eyes on the faded patch on the seat of his trousers. Where are you going? I called.

Can’t you hear it? he shouted over his shoulder.

Up and down the street children were pouring from doorways, tumbling down the stoops, dropping down from fires escapes. They all ran in the same direction.

What is it? I said, catching up to Jonathan.

Don’t you hear it? he panted. That music, there it is again—da da, dum da da. Hear it?

No, I said. I searched his face carefully to see if he was teasing.

Come on then, he said. Come see.

He took my arm and pulled me along. He never invited me anywhere anymore, so I went. I could see one of my solitaire cards still stuck to his shoe.

We rounded a corner and there it was—a white van, a clown’s face painted on the side.

That’s all? I said, disgusted. The ice cream truck?

But children were streaming past us, and Jonathan broke away from me and elbowed his way to the front of the wave.

I saw a panel sliding back and a pair of hands emerged, collecting coins, distributing Popsicles and shaved ice in paper cones already gone soggy. The children came, little ones and older ones my brother’s age, all of them oddly bright-eyed and eager, their mouths half open.

Those hands were large, a man’s hands, but carefully manicured, the nails polished and square. The nail on the left pinky finger was nearly an inch long. I thought the backs of the hands were covered in dark curly hair, until I came closer and saw that it was really swirls of dark tattoos.

Isn’t it great? my brother said. He had a green Popsicle jammed halfway down his throat, a second one melting in the pocket of his shirt just over his heart. The clamor around us had died down; all I heard now were sucking sounds. The crowd of children, fifty or more, stood rooted to the spot. Licking and swallowing. The ice cream truck pulled away from the curb.

The sun beat down but no one moved toward shade.

Can I try some? I asked, my voice loud in the silence.

No,
my brother said and took a step back. Get your own, he said. The last bit of ice was about to slide from the stick; he caught it and licked his palm.

Come on, I said and reached for him. All around me children cupped their hands protectively over their cones. Half of them had vanilla or chocolate smeared across their faces.

He’ll be back, my brother said reassuringly. The other children nodded, glassy-eyed. The little boy next to me had vanilla ice cream plugging one nostril, and red juice in his hair, and he smiled blissfully.

Ice cream’s for little kids, I told my brother, but he would not be provoked.

You’re missing out, he said.

The next afternoon I saw my brother dashing down the stairs. Can’t you hear it? he cried.

I followed him again though I heard nothing. Again we joined the stream of children that filled the street. I had money in my pocket this time. I pushed and wormed my way toward the window of the white van, where the hands dipped in and out. I drew closer and closer, holding the dollar bill above my head but just as I thought I might be noticed, the hands retreated and the van pulled away.

The bald black-toothed clown painted on the side seemed to be jeering at me.

The sun baked my hair.

I looked around, at wide eyes and Popsicles sliding in and out of mouths. The ices were of colors I had never seen before, vibrant unnatural colors like neon tubes. Inedible colors. Like the colors of certain poisonous fish and insects. The children’s mouths were stained with them.

Isn’t it the best? my brother said.

I didn’t get any, I said but he did not seem to hear.

In the stifling hot nights I crept into his room and watched him sleep. A milky drool leaked from his mouth.

The heat wave did not seem to bother my grandmother. She did not sweat, and wrapped herself in more layers of clothes than she did in winter. It was as if her layers could keep the heat out, just as they could keep the cold out.

If you can’t sleep, she said, you and Jonathan should sleep on the fire escape, there might be some breeze.

So we did that. The sky never really got dark at night, it never turned black, it stayed a deep twilight blue til dawn. It reflected the glow of the city’s lights. I never saw a single star.

I lay on my side and watched my brother sleep. He slept with his head flung back and his mouth open as if he were surprised. I tried the trick of blowing in his ear but he did not stir. He was a deep sleeper, oblivious to the sirens and garbage trucks in the street.

One night, however, his eyes popped open. There it is! he whispered. I saw his teeth shining.

There
what
is? I said though I could guess.

He stood against the sky in his pajamas, skinny chest thrust out. Then he clattered down the steps of the fire escape, down four floors and then swung from the last landing and dropped to the street.

I fell asleep waiting for him to come back.

Early in the morning I found him asleep and peaceful beside me with a cool minty smell drifting from his nose and mouth.

Night after night he heard the music and disappeared.

Stay here, I told him one night as he was getting up to leave.

I can’t, he said, it’s so loud. That music. I have to. Can’t you hear it?

Don’t go, I said. I’ll tell mother.

She won’t care, he said.

I’ll tell grandmother then, I said.

That made him pause a moment. Then he clattered away and I saw his dark figure darting up the street.

At dawn I woke and found him sleeping with a smile on his face and something sweet and sticky smeared on his mouth. I wanted to know what it was. I bent over him and tasted it. It was cherry flavored at first but bitter underneath, like cough syrup. I tasted it again.

His eyes opened then. What are you doing? he said.

Nothing.

God, you look scary this close up, he said. Get away, he said and gave me a push. But it was a gentle push, he was laughing.

The next night I went to bed in my clothes and shoes, like my mother. When my brother got up to leave, I followed him down the fire escape. The drop to the street was much farther than I had thought. My shoes smacked on the pavement and I fell over with a grunt.

Mara, what are you
doing?
he said.

I hear it now, I said. I swear I do.

He gazed at me, smiling. Isn’t it beautiful? he said.

I said: Yes.

Beautiful, he said, his head lifted and alert like a deer’s. It’s like bells, isn’t it? he said.

Exactly, I said. He turned and ran and I followed.

The streets were quiet, deserted. We ran down the center of the streets and the traffic lights clicked through their colors above our heads. The shops were covered with iron grills, and the windows of the apartments above were all dark. The only sound was the patter of our feet.

And soon we heard the patter of other feet, slowly building and increasing like raindrops. Children joined us from all sides, in pajamas and underpants and their fathers’ cast-off undershirts.

We ran, and everyone seemed to know the way except me. We ran down toward the river and I could not understand why, I could not see the white van anywhere. The others ran tirelessly, like a dream, they seemed to float above the ground. But I felt very much awake, and very tired, my breath was raw in my throat and I had a stitch in my side.

It’s louder then ever, isn’t it? my brother said breathlessly.

Yes, I said though I was falling behind. They were all running like characters in a cartoon, their legs an indiscernible blur. I’m coming, I said as they passed me, all of them in a pack, and soon outdistanced me.

Wait up, I said but they were gone, I could just barely see their pale shapes.

I followed at a slow trot. Soon I could see the river, the water shining. It looked solid enough to walk on. Lights twinkled faintly on the far side. There was a sweet, burnt smell in the air from the sugar factory on the opposite shore. And then I saw the ladder.

It touched the ground and reached high into the night sky. It hung there, taller than the tallest skyscraper. I could not see where it ended, it vanished in the clouds. The rungs glowed faintly and I could see children steadily climbing upward. Some sucked their thumbs as they climbed, some slipped and missed rungs but did not seem to care. The older ones helped the smaller ones along, shielding them from falling.

I looked up, craning my neck, and I thought for a moment I saw a white van, floating in the sky. I was not sure. But I swear I heard something, the faintest musical whine that came close and then receded like a mosquito buzzing past my ear.

I heard that music, I did!

And I started toward the ladder. But as I gripped the lowest rung it seemed such a far way to go, and looked so high, and I was so tired. I did not trust it; how could I be sure of what was at the top?

Anyway I have never liked heights.

So I turned and walked homeward. I did not look back.

I did not want to know what I was missing.

It was dawn by the time I reached home. I knocked on my mother’s bedroom door, and my grandmother’s, and told them Jonathan had disappeared.

You’re imagining things again, aren’t you, Mara? said my mother.

Where did he go? my grandmother said. She seemed to have shrunk; her nightgown pooled around her ankles and her hair trailed behind her on the floor. She looked like a child playing dress-up.

I pointed toward the river.

My grandmother dressed and bustled down the stairs. She came back several hours later with my brother stumbling and dozing against her shoulder. She said she had found him sleeping beneath the bridge, surrounded by crumpled paper cones and splintered Popsicle sticks. He still wore a sticky brown beard.

You’ll sleep inside from now on, she said. The both of you.

So we did, and my grandmother made sure the windows were tightly closed before she went to bed, though the heat was stifling.

My brother had trouble sleeping in the weeks that followed. He often came and woke me up in the middle of the night.

How did it go? he said. The music? How did it go? I’m forgetting it. Sing a little of it for me, will you?

I can’t, I said.

Just hum it then.

No, I said.

You never really heard it, did you? he said.

I did.

You didn’t. You’re lying.

What was at the top, Jonathan? What did you see up there?

You wouldn’t understand, he said. His forehead was sweaty, his hair sticking up in spikes.

He never would tell me, and soon the heat broke, and then it was autumn and he began high school. He grew a soft mustache on his lip, seemingly overnight. I searched his bed for evidence of further night excursions, and I found a dried stain on his sheets but it did not seem to be ice cream. When I asked him about the ladder he said he could not remember it anymore. At first he was just saying it, but soon I knew he meant it. His memory had always been poor and now he really had forgotten it all.

It was one more thing that I had missed out on, one more thing I would wonder about forever afterward. One more thing that was kept from me.

Ilana

I told Sashie: I don’t like what is happening to your children.

They’re doing just fine, she said. Jonathan is getting to be so handsome, don’t you think?

Mara is very strange now, I don’t like it.

Sashie said: She has always been a little sulky. She just does it for attention. She’ll stop if we ignore it.

I told her: You’re wrong. Watch her. She walks as if the floor is thin ice. She checks beneath the cushion of a chair before sitting down. She looks behind doors. Yesterday I made her an egg and she would not eat it unless I tasted it first. Then I found her counting the knives in the silverware drawer.

Sashie said: There is nothing wrong with being fastidious.

I said: Looking at me out of the corners of her eyes. I don’t like it.

She would look nice if she would only take better care of herself.

She is all contrary, all twisted around the wrong way like an ingrown hair.

Mother,
please,
Sashie said. You’re more paranoid than she is.

I said: She is too much like me, I think. We repel each other like magnets.

Jonathan is fine, though, don’t you think? she said.

He is too flimsy, too loose in the joints, or something. He needs a father, he needs a man in the house.

He is the man of the house now. You leave my son alone. He has turned out just fine.

I said: I should do something. There must be something I could do.

Haven’t you meddled enough? These are my children, not yours. You had your chance.

I had nothing more to say, then. I went to my room and shut the door and sat on the bed. I felt the bed creak and settle as Shmuel sat down on the other side, with his back to me. I did not turn around to look because if I did he would hurry away too quickly to be seen. It was better to sit like this, and sense him over my shoulder, and know he was there. To know that I could turn and catch a glimpse of him was enough. I did not have to actually do it.